Oakland to fund a new day labor program and center in Fruitvale

The intersection, at Fruitvale Avenue and Foothill Boulevard, is a popular location for day laborers in Oakland

It was just another Tuesday for Carlos, 51, and his four comrades. They stood in a small group, their hands in their coat pockets, shuffling to keep warm against the early morning chill and watching—hopefully—for someone to show up and offer them a single day’s work.

From the auto parts store parking lot where they had gathered, at Foothill and Fruitvale Ave., they eyed passing U-Haul trucks and vans. Carlos is a plumber, undocumented, originally from Mexico, living in the Fruitvale district of Oakland. He once worked as a crew foreman, he said, but the economic downturn changed that. Now a day laborer, he has been coming to this parking in the mornings for the last six years.

“I did very well in the past,” Carlos said as he glanced furtively at a passing construction truck. He sought to make eye contact with driver and watched for a hand gesture indicating a day’s work of plumbing, carpentry or landscaping.

Oakland, like many other cities around the Bay Area, used to have a publicly funded center that supported day laborers like Carlos—unemployed, mostly undocumented men seeking day-to-day work in everything from carpentry to landscaping. The former Oakland day labor center served as an indoor gathering place, serving breakfast and offering health clinic services, where workers would wait for employers to either pass by or call and request their services. It also provided occupational safety equipment and eye care. “A doctor came every Wednesday,” Carlos said.

But in 2010 the center closed, a victim of city budget cuts. For the past two years, Oakland has been one of the few Bay Area cities without a day labor center.